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Wellcome Trust maps out Britain's genetic history

A research centre had mapped out Britain's genetic make-up and, in the process, revealed some interesting facts about the historical origins of its citizens.

In particular, the map created by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics demonstrates how the population of Wales and the Orkney Islands is distinctly different from the rest of the UK. "We took the genetic information and used statistical algorithms to group people who are similar genetically and each of these is represented as a cluster of individuals," Peter Donnelly, director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, told Wired.co.uk at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition where the map is on show. "All of the south-east of England looks similar, north Wales looks different from south Wales, people from Orkney are different from anyone else in the UK and, actually even in Orkney they are different from each other."

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It is one of the most detailed and comprehensive studies of genetic geography ever created, drawing on more than 2,000 samples in the UK and 7,000 in Europe, and analysing 500,000 positions in each participants' genome. Participants in the UK were all from rural areas, with all four grandparents originating from the same district as the participant. Effectively, the data was looking into the DNA of the British population circa 1880 -- around when the participants' grandparents were born, and before populations began to migrate toward cities.

This data was then compared to information gathered from Europe.

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It was shown that people in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are all, genetically, very distinct. Picking out Norway as an example, the genetic similarities to mainland Britain were very slim. However, comparing the data to participants from the Orkney Islands showed that about a quarter of their DNA shared similarities with Norway.

Given that Orkney was part of Norway in the ninth century, it looks like there has not been a great deal of diversity on the islands.

Similarly, about half the DNA of participants from the south-east exhibited a prevalent Anglo-Saxon and Viking influence -- participants in these locations shared DNA with groups from Belgium, Germany and Denmark where these distant ancestors originated.

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Wales, by comparison, presented very few interferences from migrant groups. Here, the DNA had similarities with what Donnelly referred to as the Irish compound. Remnants of the Irish and French DNA are considered to be ancient DNA because they are present in all groups in Britain. However in Wales, these markers were substantially more common, suggesting people from Wales may have some of the most ancient DNA in Britain.

The Wellcome Trust team is working with archaeologists and historians to see how the data can be applied to solve ancient mysteries. One has already been touched upon -- up until now archaeologists have been unsure as to whether the Roman population that existed from 40AD until 400AD was replaced by the Anglo Saxon population that arrived, or if it died out.

The Wellcome Trust's results show that people in the south-east share similarities with both the Anglo Saxons from Northern Europe, and with ancient Irish and French DNA, so the answer is that both ancestors are present in our DNA and the Romans were not entirely replaced.

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Elsewhere in the exhibit, the team are using 3D facial mapping and focusing on particular features -- such as the nose -- to see if statistical variations correlate to the genetic variations already gathered and mapped out.

The team is continuing to look for participants to expand its map and, according to the head of the cancer and immunogenetics lab at the University of Oxford Sir Walter Bodmer, it is also looking into whether the data can be useful in the study of genetic diseases prevalent in the UK and Europe.